Nice and Automatic
by Loveedith
Summary: Bertie and Edith breaking up. Complete now, last chapter added.
1. Breaking Up

Herbert Pelham, who was now the 7th Marquess of Hexham, found himself out on the lawn in front of Downton Abbey. He was saying farewell for ever to the woman who had occupied most of his dreams and ambitions during the last few months.

Or perhaps even the last year. Ever since he saw her for the first time on the drive outside Brancaster and decided to take a chance he had found himself thinking more about her than he had reason to do. Considering how different their economical and social situations were.

But until he met her in London that day and helped her with her magazine during the following night it had certainly only been dreams and no ambitions.

But that night had changed everything.

...

Edith looked at him now with those big sad eyes of hers, wishing him good luck. Everything was dreadful but he was so upset, he just couldn't go on together with her. So he wished her good luck too. He really meant that, he wished everything good to this woman who had meant so much to him. Who still did.

Then he touched his hat, intending just to turn around and leave. But when he felt the hat with his fingers something shattered inside him. He suddenly remembered when he had been walking up the drive at Downton, carrying his suitcases. He had been rather annoyed at Edith, more annoyed than he had ever been at her - before now - but most of it had disappeared when she drove up in the car.

It was this moment that came back to him when he touched his hat now. How she had got out of the car and told him to hop in and how he had put down one of his suitcases on the ground to be able to take his hat off so he could kiss her.

It had been a lovely kiss, at least for himself, so her next words had puzzled him and perhaps made him feel slightly insulted.

"That feels so nice and automatic", she had said.

And now - at last - he understood why that had been good for her. She had taken nothing for granted in their relationship. She had feared every kiss would be the last one.

He realised how much fear she must have had during their entire courtship, how scared she had been of his reaction when she told him her secret.

She had been so afraid that he would react badly. And that was exactly what he had done.

She had been afraid of losing him. He was that important to her, already then.

She hadn't kept her secret from him because she didn't care about him. She hadn't dared to tell him because she cared for him too much.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment!

...

While most other Bedith writers have moved on to different AUs, I am still stuck in analysing what actually happened or could have happened during their courtship on screen. There are so many aspects of it I still want to explore.


	2. Thinking it Over

"My life was about to become absolutely wonderful and now I have thrown it all away."

That was what Edith had just said. And that was exactly what Bertie himself was doing right now, he realised.

In a quick flash he remembered what had happened between the two of them the night before. He had asked her to send him to bed happy by giving him an answer to his proposal. She had tried to tell him something - he knew what it was now - those strange words about living in a fool's paradise - but he hadn't listened. Just assumed she was saying yes when she really wasn't.

Edith hadn't tried to trick him. She wouldn't have married him without telling him, he knew that now.

He wondered why she hadn't said so when he asked her that, just a couple of minutes ago. She had done nothing at all to stop him from giving up on her. She hadn't defended herself in any way whatsoever.

Perhaps she was tired of him.

...

Bertie stood there, hat in hand, looking at Edith, wondering if he could ever kiss her again. Or if she was only too happy to get rid of him.

Edith's father and her brother-in-law were standing by the car, watching them, but that wasn't what was holding him back. He was afraid Edith wouldn't let him, that he had killed something in her by breaking up with her.

Her love for him.

The look in her face was very hard to interpret. He didn't know what to do, he wished he could turn back time, just an hour. Or maybe just to the evening before. Then he could have given her the chance to tell him her secret and Mary would have had no power to hurt either one of them this morning.

"You will miss the train", Edith said when the silence between them had lasted for quite a long time.

"Blast the train", Bertie said in a voice that was much angrier than he had meant it to be.

"Well, not literally, of course", he added when he saw how taken aback Edith looked.

She didn't say anything more, she just looked at him, seeming to wonder what he was up to. He couldn't blame her, he was wondering the same thing himself.

"Oh, Edith", he finally said. Then, after just a short moment of hesitation, he leaned forward to kiss her.

...

Edith turned her head away, avoiding Bertie's mouth.

"What was that supposed to be?" she asked, quite angrily. "A good-bye kiss? Really! Stop torturing me, Bertie! Just go away."

Then she turned her back at him and started walking over the lawn, further away from the house.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading! Thank you for the lovely comments to last chapter!

...

So, I went AU again. Don't know if I planned to when I started the story.


	3. Making a Decision

"Oh, Edith!" the Earl of Grantham said with a sigh when he saw his daughter turn away from the Marquess of Hexham's kiss.

"You don't know what he has said", Tom answered. "Perhaps he asked her to give up Marigold, to avoid the scandal getting out. Edith would never do that."

Robert wondered if the kind Bertie could really ask Edith for a thing like that.

...

After Edith had left, Bertie looked back at the two men beside the car. He didn't like the idea of getting back there - not now when they had seen Edith turning him down.

It hurt his male pride somehow that they had seen his humilation.

He realised it wouldn't have been easy to get back to them even if he himself had dumped Edith - those two men loved Edith and had protected her secret. They had no special feelings for Bertie - he wasn't at all important to them.

He couldn't blame them for keeping her secret either. It was not their secret to tell.

...

If Bertie had really wanted to end it with Edith, he could have left it all like this. Letting her feel that it was her decision. He wouldn't begrudge her that, he had never wanted to hurt her.

But Bertie didn't want it to end, did he? He turned around to look after Edith again. If he was going to go after her now he had to be absolutely certain that he wanted her. He couldn't change his mind again later on. He had to think it over carefully before he decided.

But he was certain wasn't he? Absolutely certain. Nothing had really changed, after all. Bertie had already understood that Mr Gregson had been Edith's lover. Besides - Edith was over thirty and he had never thought she was a virgin - not now, not in the roaring twenties.

And Bertie still loved Edith. That was the most important thing. The thought of a life without Edith was simply unbearable.

He loved little Marigold also. After Edith had asked him if she could bring Marigold, Bertie had endeavoured to get to know her. Bertie loved children and he had grown very fond of the shy little girl. Knowing that Marigold was Edith's own daughter only made her more lovely to him.

Did Bertie need to be certain that Edith wanted him back? Not really. He wondered briefly what she had meant when she asked him to stop torturing her. He hoped it wasn't that his kisses felt like torture to her, only that the idea that he would kiss her and then leave her for ever felt so.

He couldn't be certain of that of course, perhaps she would turn him down if he tried to win her back. But he was willing to take some more humiliation, if there was only the slightest chance that he would get her back again.

It wouldn't make much difference really. Better be hanged for a sheep than for a lamb.

...

So Bertie started walking after Edith. She was quite a bit away by now.

After a few steps he started running.

The Earl of Grantham heaved a sigh of relief.

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AN: Thank you for reading! Thank you for the kind reviews to last chapter!


	4. Falling

Edith was walking away from the house as fast as she could.

The tears she had managed to hold back all the while when talking to Bertie were now slowly trickling down her cheeks. She had been unable to hold them back any longer, but she didn't want anyone to see her cry. Especially not Bertie. So she intended to take a walk in the park to calm herself down.

Suddenly she heard Bertie's footsteps behind her - well, she heard somebody's footsteps, but who else could it be? It sounded like he was actually r _unning_ after her.

What was he up to? She didn't know, probably he had something more to say about trust and the lack of it. She definitely didn't want to hear it. She only wished he would go away and leave her alone.

She dried her eyes quickly, pretending that she was only fiddling with her hair. She didn't want him to see that she had cried.

"Edith", he called from behind. "Edith! Please! Please wait!"

But she just walked on, without even turning her head around. She was intent on pretending that she hadn't heard him at all.

...

Then Edith heard a strange sound. First a thud then a crash and after that a suppressed oath. It sounded like Bertie had stumbled on something on the turf and fallen onto the ground.

Edith didn't manage to pretend she hadn't heard Bertie any longer. She turned around and saw him lying in a heap on the ground, motionless, looking like all his strength had gone out of him.

The whole thing looked rather funny, and Edith was just about to start laughing when she realised that he could have hurt himself. Perhaps he had broken something, she thought. Or got a bad wound from a stone or a root on the ground.

She didn't find it funny any longer. She worried about him.

Oh, god! Why couldn't she stop loving him when he didn't want her?

...

Edith took a few quick steps to get closer to Bertie who was now slowly turning around so he could sit up.

"Are you hurt? Did you break anything?" Edith asked, her voice full of kindness and concern.

"No, I'm not hurt. And nothing is broken," Bertie said. He was looking down at the ground, as if he was ashamed of what had happened.

"Are you sure?" Edith asked.

"Nothing is hurt, I assure you", Bertie repeated. "Nothing is hurt except my pride. But that was already hurt before I fell..."

Then he looked up at Edith and saw that she was smiling at him.

"Why was your pride hurt?" she wondered. But before he had time to answer that she reached out her hand to help him up, and he took it, thinking about what to do next.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading! Thank you for the kind reviews to last chapter. Plese leave a comment!


	5. Proposing

Bertie was trying to get up on his feet after stumbling on a root while chasing after Edith after breaking up with her outside Downton Abbey. On his way up he noticed that he was down on one foot and one knee, holding Edith's hand in his. Just the right position for an old fashioned Victorian proposal.

Why not? Bertie thought. Last time he had proposed to her he had been leaning back on a sofa, having her leaning against his chest. This time, after breaking up with her, he felt she was entitled to something extra. If he proposed to her like this she would really understand how important and serious this was for him.

So he took Edith's other hand in his.

"Please Edith! Marry me!" he said. "I love you. I will do my best to make you happy. And I will consider it an honour if you let me be a father too your little girl."

Edith just looked at him. Did he really mean this, she wondered. What was it that had made him change his mind?

"I don't think I can live without you", Bertie added with a sigh.

"But...", Edith said. "What about trust? You said you couldn't live with me because I hadn't trusted you."

"Actually, I think you intended to tell me. Yesterday evening. But I didn't give you the time you needed. Please forgive me for that."

"I'm not at all certain I would have told you", Edith said defiantly.

What was it with her? Bertie thought. Didn't she want him back?

"I think you wanted to tell me", Bertie insisted. "And even if you didn't I still want to marry you. Please Edith! I love you. I think you are wonderful. And Marigold is a lovely little girl. I..."

Bertie wanted to tell Edith that he didn't look down at her for having a child out of wedlock. But he understood he couldn't say that. Because even saying that he didn't do that would imply that he had a reason to do that, and that would keep ringing in the back of her head for the rest of her life, whether they got back together and married or not.

Bertie didn't want Edith ever to feel ashamed about having her little girl. So he stopped talking.

Edith just looked down at Bertie for a long time.

"What about your mother?" she asked then. "Will she accept that Marigold is my daughter?"

"Well...I prefer not to tell her...We will probably have to break with her if we do."

"Oh, Bertie!" Edith said. "She will find out eventually anyhow, if she lives with us at Brancaster. So will most other people there. It's obvious that even Mary has found out, I didn't know she had. There is bound to be a scandal if you marry me. Sooner or later it will all get out."

"It doesn't matter. Not as long as you accept to be my wife. Please say yes!"

Edith looked into his pleading eyes. How could she say no to him? She wanted him just as much as he wanted her.

"I love you Bertie", she said softly. "I would very much like to become your wife."

And she was awarded by a broad smile of relief.

"Now get up so I can kiss you", Edith added, and Bertie did exactly what he was told.

...

"That was so nice", Edith sighed when their kiss had ended.

She smiled mischievously at Bertie.

"So nice and automatic", she added.

He knew then that she had forgiven him.

...

After that Edith and Bertie returned hand in hand to the house.

When they got there the Earl patted the Marquess on his back and called him "my boy" and wished him welcome into the family. It was obvious that he was just as happy about this as the young couple.

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AN: Thank you for reading! Thank you for the kind reviews to last chapter!


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